AN: Well then. This is the clarity you all have been waiting for. Well, I really only had one reviewer, so maybe you all weren't ;; In any case, the whole fic had been grounded and somewhat explained. Have fun ^.^ Oh, and Ms Jadey, I changed my mind about not including Weiss ^_^
Awake.
It was morning. The sound of the birds outside on the street woke him. He gazed at the sunlight, slanting across the floor and the wall across from him in stripes from the verticles on his window. His walls had been painted with a light olive strip along the bottom, and his foggy eyes rested on a chip of olive paint. After a moment a thought came to him. Vivdly, the image of a tall dark-haired man, standing in the darkness, only slightly touched by the faint illumination that came from the open window. Brad. He was here last night? It was about the only thing that seemed real to him about yesterdays events.
"Brad?"
He stood, still dressed in the clothing he was wearing yesterday, and listened for an answer. There was none. He checked the wall clock, which lie directly above his television set. The slender black hands read 8:23. He needed a shower desperately, so he headed for the bathroom, stripping off his sweatshirt, then the shirt beneath it, his pants and boxers. He left the strand of pearls around his neck, since he wasn't awake enough to undo the complicated clasp. He stepped into the shower, the tile was cold, and he shivered, turning the hot water on. Ken always liked hot showers.
He was lost in thought, letting the water pour down on his head and shoulders, and staring at a particular pattern of blue tiles on the wall when he heard the noise. It was a door closing, and his head snapped in that direction, turning off the water, and listening. He didn't hear anything. He suddenly resented his carpet. It was hid footsteps too well. He stepped out of the shower, slipping on his sweatshirt and tying the towel around his waist, hair still dripping. He poked his head out the door and scanned the room. Nothing. So he walked into the kitchen. His brown eyes widened in surprise.
"Good morning."
Brad was sitting at his small kitchen table, with a mug of coffee.
"Y-you..um.."
Brad smiled, composed as ever.
"I apologize for not warning you that was going to stay the night."
Ken just looked at him for a while, then realized that he was in a towel and a sweatshirt, and blushed lightly.
"Ah.."
After another moment, he turned and walked back into his room, trying not to break into a run and prove his embarrasment. He closed the door behind him. Crawford smirked lightly. Ken leaned on the door to his modestly furnished, disheveled room. Brad was in his apartment. After a moment he decided to get dressed first, and then think about what he was going to do or say. He took the sweatshirt off again, and threw it across his perfectly made bed. Wait.. He looked at the bed again. He never really bothered to make it so evenly, the sheets were all tucked into the matteress precisely, and the nondescript black-and-grey comforter smoothed out without a wrinkle. He must have slept there last night. Ken tensed, and forced himself not to think about it as he put on some loose pants, and a new T-shirt, tying the orange sweater around his waist.
He cautiously approached the kitchen. Brad had finished his coffee and looked up as he walked in. He was the image of casual elegance, in a very expensive-looking buisness suit, and managing to make it seem like nothing. His presence was enough to draw one's attention from the clothes he was wearing, no matter what that might be. Ken blushed as he realized he had been staring and quickly looked away.
"It's...been a while."
"Only since yesterday."
"You know what I mean."
Brad just nodded and Ken slid into the chair across from him, settling into the plastic-encased cushion, far from real comfort. The kitchen was modest, and dimly lit, the sunlight just providing enough illumination from the other room (since there were no windows) to avoid turning on a light. All of a sudden Ken felt the dimness as a threat, and stood, to pull the little chain of a ceiling-fan, swtiching on the light in it's center, and sending the blades spinning slowly, stirring the air. He sat back down.
"I want to apologize."
"Don't worry, kitten, I knew it was too much to ask from you."
"But you..."
He stuggled to find the words.
"I mean, you were there with me. It wasn't any easier on you, and you were able to recover. It was probably even harder....Since they used you and all."
This seemed to touch an old wound in Brad, and the pain flickered through his dark eyes for a moment, then was buried again, beneath his facade of composure.
"It's all right. I managed on my own, the important thing was that I was able to find you again."
Ken nodded slowly. Suddenly the sense of safety he had gotten from the warm light seemed to ebb away, like bathwater that had sat too long on a cold day. Not immediate, but the feeling was there, in his gut, that he had started on another down spiral. All those years of convincing himself of lies, of getting over the shock of death all around him. He had finally convinced himself it was all a dream, and now this. Now the dream had escaped back into reality, and was pulling him back into it, his other reality.
It had all started 7 years ago. Ken was 21, young, and naieve. He was patriotic. He was on his way to the National Soccer League. But that wasn't to be his future it seems. Japan declared a civil war, dividing itself politically. Two prominent leaders had risen to power, one was Takatori Reji, and the other known only as "Persia" in his political circles. The two constantly had bloody clashes in the streets, and the police force was about split down the middle, so that didn't help at all.
Japan took sides. Thousands of families were forced to relocate, as the battle lines were drawn. Shelters were hasitly put together for those with no place to go. Massacres rose on the streets between activists. Military support was building behind each party, a network of secrets, threats, rumors. Ken was caught up in it all, in way over his head. He supported Takatori, and when it was time to enlist he did. He was a little brash, and was living out of a tiny space he had managed to rent almost just over the divide, where most of the clashes were erupting. He barely scraped together a decent living from the suppliment given to recruits who found their own housing near the base. The war hadn't started yet, so he imagined he would be forced to move into army quarters soon enough.
He was pulled out of his reverie with a question.
"Hm?"
"What are you thinking about, Ken?"
He looked down at his hands, resting palms-down on the slightly-scuffed table.
"The past. Things I thought I had forgotten.."
Brad nodded.
~*~ (flashback)
A low-celinged, vast, rectangular room. The young man looked around, feeling strangely out of place. Eyes were on him, from everywhere. Some families had built up partitions with sheets, and had managed to find, or buy used scraps of funrature, the occasional mattress, and heaps of the standard-issue blue-grey blankets. They seemed to give the whole place an air of dismalness, even through the japaneese flags plastering the walls, which were also a shade of grey. It was early evening. The young man in question had just come back to his apartment complex to find it leveled in a heap of broken concrete and twisted metal supports. They had started bombing. It was just rouge terrorists, but it would start in earnest soon.
He walked through the long corridor-like building, a paper in his hand with a 5-digit number printed neatly in its center, with his name above it. He looked for the number, and was amazed at how many more spaces were filled. He voulenteered here in his spare time, handing out food and doing other tasks that needed to be done. There it was, 3416, in stenciled white on the grey wall. Beneath it someone had stuck a little flag decal, which stood out on the wall, sadly hopeful. He looked down, and to his suprise, there was another man sitting there, his back leaned against the wall. He wasn't looking at the first young man, seeming to be caught up in his own thoughts. He had short black hair and glasses, dressed in casual clothing; a button-down black shirt and off-white slacks.
The younger brunette cleared his throat a little, and was graced by a look from the other man.
"Anou..do I have the wrong number?"
There was a pause that seemed to stretch out between the two, in which they regarded each other in silence, one studying the other, and one waiting for an answer to his quesiton.
"No. I just had a feeling you would be here."
He stood. Then smiled a little, which relieved the other a little. He didn't quite know what to think of the tall black-haired American.
"I'm Brad Crawford."
He offered a hand.
"Ken Hideaka."
Ken took it, then returned the smile. He liked this man almost immediately, and felt him to be trustworthy. He ventured a question.
"Been here long?"
"No, not very."
"Ah, I see.. My apartment just got blown to smithereens."
Ken sighed a little at the memory, and Brad nodded his understanding.
"I was just put here temporarily, for my protection."
"Protection?"
Brad grinned a little.
"It's a secret."
"Oh."
"Hey, why don't you come and stay in my space until they get around to supplying you. I managed to filch a three-person one, and its pretty comfortable."
Ken was a bit unprepared for that invitation, especially since the two were still practically strangers. But it was tempting, and he'd like to talk more with Brad, who seemed like such a cool person.
"Sure."
Brad smiled, and started off through the long room, turning off at one of the few forks in the structure. It was a good 5 minute walk from Ken's assigned space, but it was worth it in the end. Brad had put up sheets over a framework of fitted metal rods, to serve as temporary walls like so many other people had done. Inside he had a comfortable-looking mattress, and a table, along with several cushions strewn around.
"Welcome to my humble abode."
He smiled, and gave Ken a little wink. Ken looked around, and smiled a little himself.
~*~
He snapped out of it as he noticed Brad looking at him, with amusement in his eyes.
"What?"
Brad leaned towards him a little, with his elbows on the table.
"I just find it funny that you haven't questioned me at all since I've showed up."
Ken was suprised at this himself, as soon as he realized it, and frowned. So much he didn't understand had gone on the night before, and he suddenly did want answers. Questions whirled frenzied in his head, and gave him the beginnings of a headache as he tried to sort out what he really wanted to ask. He was saved by Brad's interjection.
"It's all right. Let me start by explaining myself. Yesterday would seem very dream-like to you now, and perhaps even then. Schuldig is a telepath, a mind-reader. He also has the power to control the thoughts of others. Which is why you probably found yourself going along with things even though not much was explined to you."
Ken nodded a little. It did make a lot of sense. How his thought were sharply pulled away from clarity whenever they started to get restless and demand answers.
"Schuldig is part of a anarchist group I joined with. They named themselves Schwarz and are trying to bring down the government, and then put an end to the world as we know it. They all have some kind of power, and that is why I was accepted so quickly. You know what my power is.."
Ken nodded again, and his fingers went to the pearls at his neck, playing with the smooth gems unconsciously. Brad noticed.
"Ah, that.. When we first split away from each other, I was seriously in need of money. I was also in hiding from the government, and my alias had no real credentals for any kind of high-paying line of work. So I became a jewel theif. Randal White, you might have even heard of me."
A little gasp from Ken.
"Randal White? You were all over the news for years..God, I never imagined..But wasn't he caught?"
Brad smirked a little, as if pleased with his own genius.
"Yes, he was."
Realization dawned on Ken, along with mixed sympathy for the victim Brad must have framed. He noticed this in Ken's eyes.
"Don't worry about him. He probably deserved to be caught even more then me. We were competitors in the market, after all. I only made papers because I was obvious, I didn't care about the publicity. He worked in secret circles, much more dangerous. Stealing from those who couldn't report to the authorities anyways. Hunting the darkness, but not particularily for the sake of light."
Brad shrugged, and Ken's conscience seemed to relax a little.
"I see...So you got enough money, then hooked on to an activist orginization, and then found me."
"Activist.." A little smile. "Just be careful around them. Schu will use you without batting an eyelash, and Francine is just evil. Nagi is young, but don't let that fool you. He is as ambitious as the rest of us."
Francine must have been the woman in black on the dock that night, but the name Nagi wasn't ringing any bells.
"Nagi?"
"He's a telekinetic. Still in high school. You'll meet him back at headquarters."
"Back at.."
Brad nodded.
"You are still planning to follow through with this aren't you?"
His eyes were dark an intense behind thin silver-rimmed glasses. Ken found his own brown eyes caught, even though he tried to look down.
"Yes."
***
Awake.
It was morning. The sound of the birds outside on the street woke him. He gazed at the sunlight, slanting across the floor and the wall across from him in stripes from the verticles on his window. His walls had been painted with a light olive strip along the bottom, and his foggy eyes rested on a chip of olive paint. After a moment a thought came to him. Vivdly, the image of a tall dark-haired man, standing in the darkness, only slightly touched by the faint illumination that came from the open window. Brad. He was here last night? It was about the only thing that seemed real to him about yesterdays events.
"Brad?"
He stood, still dressed in the clothing he was wearing yesterday, and listened for an answer. There was none. He checked the wall clock, which lie directly above his television set. The slender black hands read 8:23. He needed a shower desperately, so he headed for the bathroom, stripping off his sweatshirt, then the shirt beneath it, his pants and boxers. He left the strand of pearls around his neck, since he wasn't awake enough to undo the complicated clasp. He stepped into the shower, the tile was cold, and he shivered, turning the hot water on. Ken always liked hot showers.
He was lost in thought, letting the water pour down on his head and shoulders, and staring at a particular pattern of blue tiles on the wall when he heard the noise. It was a door closing, and his head snapped in that direction, turning off the water, and listening. He didn't hear anything. He suddenly resented his carpet. It was hid footsteps too well. He stepped out of the shower, slipping on his sweatshirt and tying the towel around his waist, hair still dripping. He poked his head out the door and scanned the room. Nothing. So he walked into the kitchen. His brown eyes widened in surprise.
"Good morning."
Brad was sitting at his small kitchen table, with a mug of coffee.
"Y-you..um.."
Brad smiled, composed as ever.
"I apologize for not warning you that was going to stay the night."
Ken just looked at him for a while, then realized that he was in a towel and a sweatshirt, and blushed lightly.
"Ah.."
After another moment, he turned and walked back into his room, trying not to break into a run and prove his embarrasment. He closed the door behind him. Crawford smirked lightly. Ken leaned on the door to his modestly furnished, disheveled room. Brad was in his apartment. After a moment he decided to get dressed first, and then think about what he was going to do or say. He took the sweatshirt off again, and threw it across his perfectly made bed. Wait.. He looked at the bed again. He never really bothered to make it so evenly, the sheets were all tucked into the matteress precisely, and the nondescript black-and-grey comforter smoothed out without a wrinkle. He must have slept there last night. Ken tensed, and forced himself not to think about it as he put on some loose pants, and a new T-shirt, tying the orange sweater around his waist.
He cautiously approached the kitchen. Brad had finished his coffee and looked up as he walked in. He was the image of casual elegance, in a very expensive-looking buisness suit, and managing to make it seem like nothing. His presence was enough to draw one's attention from the clothes he was wearing, no matter what that might be. Ken blushed as he realized he had been staring and quickly looked away.
"It's...been a while."
"Only since yesterday."
"You know what I mean."
Brad just nodded and Ken slid into the chair across from him, settling into the plastic-encased cushion, far from real comfort. The kitchen was modest, and dimly lit, the sunlight just providing enough illumination from the other room (since there were no windows) to avoid turning on a light. All of a sudden Ken felt the dimness as a threat, and stood, to pull the little chain of a ceiling-fan, swtiching on the light in it's center, and sending the blades spinning slowly, stirring the air. He sat back down.
"I want to apologize."
"Don't worry, kitten, I knew it was too much to ask from you."
"But you..."
He stuggled to find the words.
"I mean, you were there with me. It wasn't any easier on you, and you were able to recover. It was probably even harder....Since they used you and all."
This seemed to touch an old wound in Brad, and the pain flickered through his dark eyes for a moment, then was buried again, beneath his facade of composure.
"It's all right. I managed on my own, the important thing was that I was able to find you again."
Ken nodded slowly. Suddenly the sense of safety he had gotten from the warm light seemed to ebb away, like bathwater that had sat too long on a cold day. Not immediate, but the feeling was there, in his gut, that he had started on another down spiral. All those years of convincing himself of lies, of getting over the shock of death all around him. He had finally convinced himself it was all a dream, and now this. Now the dream had escaped back into reality, and was pulling him back into it, his other reality.
It had all started 7 years ago. Ken was 21, young, and naieve. He was patriotic. He was on his way to the National Soccer League. But that wasn't to be his future it seems. Japan declared a civil war, dividing itself politically. Two prominent leaders had risen to power, one was Takatori Reji, and the other known only as "Persia" in his political circles. The two constantly had bloody clashes in the streets, and the police force was about split down the middle, so that didn't help at all.
Japan took sides. Thousands of families were forced to relocate, as the battle lines were drawn. Shelters were hasitly put together for those with no place to go. Massacres rose on the streets between activists. Military support was building behind each party, a network of secrets, threats, rumors. Ken was caught up in it all, in way over his head. He supported Takatori, and when it was time to enlist he did. He was a little brash, and was living out of a tiny space he had managed to rent almost just over the divide, where most of the clashes were erupting. He barely scraped together a decent living from the suppliment given to recruits who found their own housing near the base. The war hadn't started yet, so he imagined he would be forced to move into army quarters soon enough.
He was pulled out of his reverie with a question.
"Hm?"
"What are you thinking about, Ken?"
He looked down at his hands, resting palms-down on the slightly-scuffed table.
"The past. Things I thought I had forgotten.."
Brad nodded.
~*~ (flashback)
A low-celinged, vast, rectangular room. The young man looked around, feeling strangely out of place. Eyes were on him, from everywhere. Some families had built up partitions with sheets, and had managed to find, or buy used scraps of funrature, the occasional mattress, and heaps of the standard-issue blue-grey blankets. They seemed to give the whole place an air of dismalness, even through the japaneese flags plastering the walls, which were also a shade of grey. It was early evening. The young man in question had just come back to his apartment complex to find it leveled in a heap of broken concrete and twisted metal supports. They had started bombing. It was just rouge terrorists, but it would start in earnest soon.
He walked through the long corridor-like building, a paper in his hand with a 5-digit number printed neatly in its center, with his name above it. He looked for the number, and was amazed at how many more spaces were filled. He voulenteered here in his spare time, handing out food and doing other tasks that needed to be done. There it was, 3416, in stenciled white on the grey wall. Beneath it someone had stuck a little flag decal, which stood out on the wall, sadly hopeful. He looked down, and to his suprise, there was another man sitting there, his back leaned against the wall. He wasn't looking at the first young man, seeming to be caught up in his own thoughts. He had short black hair and glasses, dressed in casual clothing; a button-down black shirt and off-white slacks.
The younger brunette cleared his throat a little, and was graced by a look from the other man.
"Anou..do I have the wrong number?"
There was a pause that seemed to stretch out between the two, in which they regarded each other in silence, one studying the other, and one waiting for an answer to his quesiton.
"No. I just had a feeling you would be here."
He stood. Then smiled a little, which relieved the other a little. He didn't quite know what to think of the tall black-haired American.
"I'm Brad Crawford."
He offered a hand.
"Ken Hideaka."
Ken took it, then returned the smile. He liked this man almost immediately, and felt him to be trustworthy. He ventured a question.
"Been here long?"
"No, not very."
"Ah, I see.. My apartment just got blown to smithereens."
Ken sighed a little at the memory, and Brad nodded his understanding.
"I was just put here temporarily, for my protection."
"Protection?"
Brad grinned a little.
"It's a secret."
"Oh."
"Hey, why don't you come and stay in my space until they get around to supplying you. I managed to filch a three-person one, and its pretty comfortable."
Ken was a bit unprepared for that invitation, especially since the two were still practically strangers. But it was tempting, and he'd like to talk more with Brad, who seemed like such a cool person.
"Sure."
Brad smiled, and started off through the long room, turning off at one of the few forks in the structure. It was a good 5 minute walk from Ken's assigned space, but it was worth it in the end. Brad had put up sheets over a framework of fitted metal rods, to serve as temporary walls like so many other people had done. Inside he had a comfortable-looking mattress, and a table, along with several cushions strewn around.
"Welcome to my humble abode."
He smiled, and gave Ken a little wink. Ken looked around, and smiled a little himself.
~*~
He snapped out of it as he noticed Brad looking at him, with amusement in his eyes.
"What?"
Brad leaned towards him a little, with his elbows on the table.
"I just find it funny that you haven't questioned me at all since I've showed up."
Ken was suprised at this himself, as soon as he realized it, and frowned. So much he didn't understand had gone on the night before, and he suddenly did want answers. Questions whirled frenzied in his head, and gave him the beginnings of a headache as he tried to sort out what he really wanted to ask. He was saved by Brad's interjection.
"It's all right. Let me start by explaining myself. Yesterday would seem very dream-like to you now, and perhaps even then. Schuldig is a telepath, a mind-reader. He also has the power to control the thoughts of others. Which is why you probably found yourself going along with things even though not much was explined to you."
Ken nodded a little. It did make a lot of sense. How his thought were sharply pulled away from clarity whenever they started to get restless and demand answers.
"Schuldig is part of a anarchist group I joined with. They named themselves Schwarz and are trying to bring down the government, and then put an end to the world as we know it. They all have some kind of power, and that is why I was accepted so quickly. You know what my power is.."
Ken nodded again, and his fingers went to the pearls at his neck, playing with the smooth gems unconsciously. Brad noticed.
"Ah, that.. When we first split away from each other, I was seriously in need of money. I was also in hiding from the government, and my alias had no real credentals for any kind of high-paying line of work. So I became a jewel theif. Randal White, you might have even heard of me."
A little gasp from Ken.
"Randal White? You were all over the news for years..God, I never imagined..But wasn't he caught?"
Brad smirked a little, as if pleased with his own genius.
"Yes, he was."
Realization dawned on Ken, along with mixed sympathy for the victim Brad must have framed. He noticed this in Ken's eyes.
"Don't worry about him. He probably deserved to be caught even more then me. We were competitors in the market, after all. I only made papers because I was obvious, I didn't care about the publicity. He worked in secret circles, much more dangerous. Stealing from those who couldn't report to the authorities anyways. Hunting the darkness, but not particularily for the sake of light."
Brad shrugged, and Ken's conscience seemed to relax a little.
"I see...So you got enough money, then hooked on to an activist orginization, and then found me."
"Activist.." A little smile. "Just be careful around them. Schu will use you without batting an eyelash, and Francine is just evil. Nagi is young, but don't let that fool you. He is as ambitious as the rest of us."
Francine must have been the woman in black on the dock that night, but the name Nagi wasn't ringing any bells.
"Nagi?"
"He's a telekinetic. Still in high school. You'll meet him back at headquarters."
"Back at.."
Brad nodded.
"You are still planning to follow through with this aren't you?"
His eyes were dark an intense behind thin silver-rimmed glasses. Ken found his own brown eyes caught, even though he tried to look down.
"Yes."
***
